Validation

Validation of Active Entities in CBORM using cbValidation

Validation Functions

Our active entity object will also give you access to our validation engine (cbValidation) by giving your ORM entities the following functions:

/**
 * Validate the ActiveEntity with the coded constraints -> this.constraints, or passed in shared or implicit constraints
 * The entity must have been populated with data before the validation
 *
 * @fields One or more fields to validate on, by default it validates all fields in the constraints. This can be a simple list or an array.
 * @constraints An optional shared constraints name or an actual structure of constraints to validate on.
 * @locale An optional locale to use for i18n messages
 * @excludeFields An optional list of fields to exclude from the validation.
 */
boolean function isValid(
	string fields="*",
	any constraints="",
	string locale="",
	string excludeFields=""
){

/**
* Get the validation results object.  This will be an empty validation object if isValid() has not being called yet.
*/
cbvalidation.models.result.IValidationResult function getValidationResults(){

Declaring Constraints

This makes it really easy for you to validate your ORM entities in two easy steps:

1) Add your validation constraints to the entity

2) Call the validation methods

Let's see the entity code so you can see the constraints:

models/User.cfc

component persistent="true" extends="cborm.models.ActiveEntity"{

    // Properties
    property name="firstName";
    property name="lastName";
    property name="email";
    property name="username";
    property name="password";

    // Validation Constraints
    this.constraints = {
        "firstName" = {required=true},
        "lastName"  = {required=true},
        "email"     = {required=true,type="email"},
        "username"  = {required=true, size="5..10"},
        "password"  = {required=true, size="5..10"}
    };
}

Validating Constraints

Now let's check out the handlers to see how to validate the entity via the isValid() function:

handlers/users.cfc

component{

    property name="messagebox" inject="messagebox@cbmessagebox";

    function index(event,rc,prc){
        prc.users = getInstance( "User" ).list( sortOrder="lastName asc" );
        event.setView( "users/list" );
    }

    function save(event,rc,prc){
        event.paramValue( "id", -1 );

        var oUser = getInstance( "User" )
            .getOrFail( rc.id )
            .populate( rc )

        if( oUser.isValid() {
            oUser.save();
            flash.put( "notice", "User Saved!" );
            relocate( "users.index" );
        }
        else{
            messagebox.error( messageArray=oUser.getValidationResults().getAllErrors() );
            editor( event, rc, prc );
        }

    }

    function editor(event,rc,prc){
        event.paramValue( "id", -1 );
        prc.user = getInstance( "User" ).getOrFail( rc.id );
        event.setView( "users/editor" );
    }

    function delete(event,rc,prc){
        event.paramValue( "id", -1 );
        getInstance( "User" )
            .deleteById( rc.id );
        flash.put( "notice", "User Removed!" );
        relocate( "users.index" );
    }
}

Please remember that the isValid() function has several arguments you can use to fine tune the validation:

• fields

• constraints

• locale

• excludeFields

Displaying Errors

You can refer back to the cbValidation docs for displaying errors:

Displaying Errors | cbValidationcoldbox-validation.ortusbooks.com

Here are the most common methods for retreving the errors from the Result object via the getValidationResults() method:

• getResultMetadata()

• getFieldErrors( [field] )

• getAllErrors( [field] )

• getAllErrorsAsJSON( [field] )

• getAllErrorsAsStruct( [field] )

• getErrorCount( [field] )

• hasErrors( [field] )

• getErrors()

The API Docs in the module (once installed) will give you the latest information about these methods and arguments.

Unique Property Validation

We have also integrated a UniqueValidator from the validation module into our ORM module. It is mapped into WireBox as UniqueValidator@cborm so you can use it in your model constraints like so:

{ username : { validator : "UniqueValidator@cborm", required : true } }